Disclaimer: I do not own Tom. I do not own the moon. I do not own the night, the darkness, the orphanage, Shakespeare, or Oliver Twist. I do not own God. Or beatings. Or involuntary starvation. In a nutshell, I own nothing but a) the story, and b) The Shadow and the director of the orphanage, unless at some time they are mentioned by J.K. Rowling, at which time I will no longer own them, being a mere fanfiction writer. The quotes are from Shakespeare, whom I already SAID I do not own. Got it? Good.
A/N: Not one of my best, as it was written in psychology class during Paxil withdrawal. Mean reviews are welcome.
I have been getting rather OCD about fanfiction lately... sorry... *sigh* Anyhow.
And now... The one and only... TOM-SHAKESPEARE-OLIVER TWIST-TESSASTORY!
***
He lifted his hand to the window, watched the moonlight slice through it, knife-like. It seemed to him that he saw the stain of blood still on those narrow fingers, smelt the odor of fresh-spilt blood in the motionless air...
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!
Truly, he was forsaken. Trapped in this God-damned counterfeit of existence. Not that he believed in God any longer... He once had, as that small boy he was no longer. Even with the beatings, the near-starvation, his childhood had lingered for a few years... Oliver Twist. He'd loved it. Nearly worshipped it, Muggle-written though it was. He'd thought it had meant that he would be loved, accepted some day. He had thought it had meant he had a chance.
He laughed bitterly, recalling the day he had lost those last, beaten remnants of innocence. That had been the day he'd finally met his father-
The boy say huddled in the corner of the room, squinting down at one well-worn, dimly lit page. His pale skin was streaked with mud and tears, one of which slowly made its way down his face, threatening to spill over and onto the delicate paper.
A shadow fell over the page- The boy scrambled to his feet, tugging at his frayed smock. "Sir?" His eyes flickered with fear, fear with nearly overlaid the frightening imbalance hidden deep within those green irises. The Shadow beckoned, saying nothing but with no air of silence surrounding him, and the skeletal boy trotted after him, wiping his face with one grubby sleeve.
They passed through halls of yellowed plaster, spiderwebbed with cracks, and then into a room of grey stone, grand in comparison with the rest of the orphanage. The boy's eyes, wide with surprise and curiosity, darted around the unfamiliar room. After so many years spent between the yellowed plaster walls of this building, it was a shock to him to see a place he had not yet found...
From around a corner, the boy heard fragments of conversation. The fear stirred in him again...
"father... dirty, quite rebellious... time reading trash, stubborn..."
He knew they were talking about him. They had to be. His heart sank...
Around another corner. The boy caught a glimpse of two men, one being the director of the orphanage and the other being a stranger who was somehow vaguely familiar, before he averted his eyes, looking down at his frostbitten feet, the ones he had so carefully tied up in rags after Bernie had stolen his shoes. He could feel the eyes of all three men on him, burning at his skin through the rough cotton of his clothing. The Director spoke.
"We've found your father."
For a moment, Tom didn't understand. Father? He didn't
have a father. He was an orphan, right? But he looked up, and saw those green eyes of his in another man's face, saw his coal-black hair on another head."My father? Are you going to take me home, then?" His voice, already high with childhood, rose with hope. Oliver had gotten this, after all-
"You?" The man sneered. "You don't have a home, witch-child."
And then Tom screamed, and could not stop.
So much changed after that... His eyes grew harder, colder, darker with each passing day, as he dreamed of death. And then there came the letter, and knowledge, and Death was within his grasp...
He killed them all. His mother, his brother. His father. Avada Kevadra... The words had been harsh in his throat, and yet they came out in bare whispers, his eyes gleaming with power. With revenge.
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him...
The full moon cast icy light on his form, shrouded in black silk. One hand reached beneath his cloak, extracting a tattered volume held between tapered, colorless fingers. Laughing brutally, humorlessly, he tossed from him this symbol of all hope, all love, all longing. As it fluttered to the ground, unnaturally light, and sank into the murky waters of the lake, his form shook, harsh cries bursting from him and into the night.
Hell is indeed murky, my lord...